Just before the wedding ceremony began, Noph cornered Jheldan- 'Stormrunner' Boaldegg, First Mariner of the Master Mariners' Guild. The sea dog stood in the narthex of the palace chapel, and like the other guests, waited to be seated for the ceremony.
Noph casually approached the man. 'An honest to goodness sea captain,' he said admiringly.
The old seaman stared out from behind a fleecy white mask of beard and eyebrows. Around a battered pipe, he drawled, 'Aye.'
'This is the closest I've ever been to real adventure,' Noph pressed. 'As the son of a nobleman, I read plenty of stories of the briny deep. but have never gotten to sail out on it myself.'
'Aye.'
Noph's demeanor suddenly changed from casual excitement to focused desire. 'I want to go to sea.'
Captain Boaldegg fixed him with a stem look.
'I wouldn't need a commission,' Noph said quietly, all the while glancing over his sshoulder. 'I know you give officer commissions to some nobles-but I'd be willing to holystone decks and haul sheets.'
The white-bearded sea dog blinked in consideration, his scarred red face looking for all the world like a hunk of granite. At last, he let go the blue pipe smoke he'd held in his lungs and said, 'Deck hands are abundant. We've got plenty of them straight from jails and flophouses. They don't ask much pay, try to avoid trouble, and know their trade. Why should I bump one of them seasoned seamen to take on a load of noble trouble?'
'Trouble?' asked Noph in an injured tone. 'I wouldn't make any trouble. Besides, I heard there's going to be need for plenty more hands once… once the trade pact falls through '
Though before, the seaman's eyes had seemed glassy and amused beneath his eyebrows, now they were sharp as arrowheads. 'What makes you think me pact is jeopardized, lad?' Noph returned the man's steely glare. 'I know about what you have planned. I know about… Eidola.'
Suddenly, the man's old hand-steel bars and cablesseized Noph's arm. 'You're coming with me, lad.'
“0h, no he's not,' interrupted Laskar Nesher. From behind his son, he pried the captain's hand loose. 'No son of mine-no heir of mine-is going to waste his life with a bunch of thieves and bilge rats. Get gone, old Boaldegg. Troll the gutters and prisons for your shipmates '
With that, Laskar Nesher drew his son away from the glowering sea dog. For once, the merchant's eyes were focused on his son-focused and intent. 'What's this all about, Kastonoph?'
'You wouldn't understand,' Noph said truthfully. Laskar managed to look angered, hurt, and understanding, all at once. He gripped his son's arm harder than had the captain and dragged Noph to the relative privacy of the crying room, behind the narthex.
'I know you think me a copper-coddling miser, a fool preoccupied with the flash of coins and unable to see true riches,” said the man earnestly. His eyes were feverishly bright. 'I often think so, myself. But the reason for it all is that I'm trying to build a dynasty for you. Yes, I am a fool. In the process of amassing a fortune, I've made you despise anything you might inherit from me.'
'It's all right. Father,' began Noph. 'You don't have to-'
'But don't give up on me now. Son. At last, my frugality has paid off, has put me in a place where everything will change for us. And it is all wrapped up in this wedding, in the Lady Eidola herself.'
The nobleman paused, expecting another interruption, but Noph was as silent and still as a statue.
Laskar gingerly began again, as if poking at a wound. 'I have certain… information about the Lady Eidolaabout her past… information she desperately wants to keep from her husband '
“Father.' said Noph in alarm. The momentary empathy he had felt for the man fled. 'Blackmaii? Is this the future you have planned for me?**
'Don’t think of it as blackmail. I'm not asking her for money-just for the assurance of work. There's going to be lots of wood needed for bridges and corduroy roads once this trade pact is finished, and I want us to supply that wood.'
Noph's usually white face was now blotched with red-disappointment and, worse, pity. 'What have you become? You'd commit extortion? And against the Lady Eidola?'
'It isn't extortion,' his father blustered. 'We'll be working for every copper we make off this. And if you knew about her what I know-'
'Enough!' cried Noph in a sudden rage. 'I can't stomach another word from you. I can't stand to breathe the same air as you.' Laskar tried to interrupt, but Noph swept his hand up before the man 'Speak, and I will empty my stomach on you, I swear it. You nauseate me. I nauseate me-the very fact that I am your son makes me sick. Let it be punishment enough that I have inherited your looks-do not add the burden of your deceits.'
He turned and stalked back toward the narthex, where guests were lined up to be shown to their seats. At the arched entrance to the crying room, he said, 'I hope you have enough honour to disown me.' And with that, he left.
Noph growled inwardly. No, his father was not in league with the malaugrym or the mariners, or anyone else seeking to stop the wedding. No, his father was not a traitor or a murderer. Laskar Nesher was merely a petty criminal in times that called men to greatness.
Father has chosen his own road. Noph thought. I need to do the same.
'Sir, your name?' asked the liveried attendant by the door.
Noph hesitated, unsure what to say. At last, he murmured, 'Put me down simply as Freeman Kastonoph, friend and loyal servant of the groom.' Interlude: The Silver Margin Midnight has come. The time for worry about plots is done. Let the traitors do their worst. They will have to reckon with me. They will have to fight Madieron and Captain Rulathon. The Blackstaff guards us, too, and even young Kastonoph. Whatever comes, I will marry Eidola; the Boarskyrs will sign the pact; all the world will be forever changed.
For better or for worse.
I am already dizzy with change.
I cling to the wooden chancel screen, fashioned of twirled walnut. Walnut has its swirls. Disease twists these into burls. We carve the burls into flourishes and filigree.
One chaos is carved from another.
I gaze through the screen. The chapel is carved into pieces by it.
I see fragments of a bright, crowded sanctuary. I see dark pieces of the gathered guests. I see empty sections of blackness where my bride will appear.
Fragments and pieces…
Rock to sand to dust to nothing at all…
The sanctuary is slowly listing over.
It will capsize before my bride stands beside me.
We will be married on the ceiling.
Cold sweat stands on my white cheeks. I am glad Sandrew gave me this bucket.
I see a piece of my young spy. Noph strides solemnly through the screen spaces. He fits himself onto an already loaded bench.
There is something different about him. His swagger is gone. Even he is changed. He suddenly seems a man. 'Tomorrow, Iam a man.' I spoke those words long, long ago. The memory is as strong and stinging as distilled spirits. Shaleen is a silhouette against the dim gloaming. She stands framed by a rugged wood doorway. Beyond her hangs a hay hook. It is tangled with its block and tackle. The barn slats glow with predawn.
I rise. Hay drops from me. I shiver, feeling the cold against my bare skin. I shiver again, with something else.
This is a mistake. Nothing will be me same now. Nothing. She will forever be different. I, too. A yearning shoots through me. I wish to return to the day before, to our young and simple lives.
I search in the hay for my breeches. The sound of my hand is loud in the morning.
'Come here,' Shaleen whispers.
I look up to her. She stands there, bare as the morning.
'Come see'
I nod. I try to rise, but my legs tremble. The loft's planks are rough under my feet.
I reach her.
She, too, trembles, but her shoulders and back are warm and solid in the darkness.
'Look,' she says. Her hand points outward. Beyond the turbulence of the autumn forest, a slim curtain rises
